Pats have a drive to succeed

FOXBORO — It took the Patriots 9 minutes and 13 seconds to turn the 21-yard line into an end zone. That's how much time was left on the clock when New England claimed its final possession in Sunday's AFC Championship game.

FOXBORO — It took the Patriots 9 minutes and 13 seconds to turn the 21-yard line into an end zone.

That's how much time was left on the clock when New England claimed its final possession in Sunday's AFC Championship game. The Patriots ran 15 plays to use up every precious second and sealed a 21-12 victory over the Chargers when quarterback Tom Brady took a knee at the San Diego 21.

Time-wise, it was the longest non-scoring drive of the Patriots' season, but it was unquestionably the most fruitful, giving New England its fourth Super Bowl berth in seven seasons.

New York talk-show host Mike Francesa called it "The Drive to Nowhere" on Monday afternoon, but you may as well consider it The Drive to Phoenix.

"It was the way you want to end the game, with the ball possession," Patriots head coach Bill Belichick said. "Kneeling down — that's the way you'd like to win every game."

The Patriots hadn't had a drive that long since Week 2, when they held the ball for 10:01 en route to a touchdown in their first meeting with the Chargers. Their longest drive of the season lasted 10:28 on opening day against the Jets and also produced a touchdown.

But New England is capable of finding the end zone far more hastily. Three times this season, the Patriots scored a touchdown in under a minute, the fastest coming on a three-play, 65-yard drive against their next opponent, the Giants, which took just 23 seconds.

Scoring was not a concern in the fourth quarter. The Patriots just had to play keepaway to reach the Super Bowl, and that's what they did, mixing Laurence Maroney's physical ground game with clutch catches from Kevin Faulk.

Left guard Logan Mankins said he and his fellow linemen had one priority when the drive started at the New England's own 13-yard line — eat up the clock, so the Patriots could line up in victory formation and let Brady drop a game-ending knee on the ground.

"Just finish the game," Mankins said. "Make sure you finish your blocks and Laurence, he'll stick it up in there and get four or five yards. And let's just run out the clock and get in our favorite formation and run our favorite play."

Maroney's second-half effort was a key to the Patriots' win and crucial to the game-ending drive. The second-year running back had 122 yards on 25 carries, with 105 yards on 18 plays in the final two quarters. He had eight carries for 37 yards on the final drive and pushed the Chargers around with physical play throughout the second half.

"I know he was running hard, because he was bleeding all over in the mouth," left tackle Matt Light said. "I don't know if they showed that on TV or not, but you know I'll tell you, he's had a heck of year. "¦ He had the game of his career, which is what we needed."

The Patriots also needed two clutch, third-down catches from Kevin Faulk. On a day when Tom Brady wasn't throwing his best ball, Faulk made a diving catch for 11 yards on third-and-11 from the Pats 24. Three plays later, he reached behind the left side of his body while he was running to his right and snared a Brady pass on the edge of finger tips, then ran for 14 yards on third-and-3.

Conventional wisdom suggests that the best way to stifle a potent offense is to win time of possession. But the high-scoring Patriots have won that battle in all but five of their 18 games.

The teams that came the closest to beating them, the Colts and Ravens, both losing by four points or less, beat New England on the clock. Baltimore, which had the best chance this season to hand the Pats a loss, had the ball for 32:54, the second-most any team has had against them this season.

But in the other three games in which the Pats lost in possession (two against the Dolphins and one against the Steelers), they won by an average margin of 20 points. The Steelers had the ball for 34:43 — longer than anyone else has — and lost 31-13.

Against the Giants, whom the Patriots will see in Glendale, Ariz., on Feb. 3, New England held the ball for 36:14, their second-best effort in time of possession this season.

If they continue to crank out 9-minute drives, as they did at the end on Sunday, then the Giants have little hope of winning the possession game.

"It's situational football," Belichick said. "It wasn't about scoring points at that point in the game. It was about maintaining possession of the ball and running out the clock. Offensively, we did it."